Go West

As the Village People sang in the movie 'The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert':

Go west, in the open air
Go west, where the skies are blue
Go west, this is what we're gonna do ...........

But from Darwin first we have to go south or we end up in Darwin Harbour. So we took to the Stuart Hwy towards Katherine and in this instance we included a little deviation to Manton View Retreat (https://www.facebook.com/MantonViewRetreat/?ref=py_c) for an overnight with friends. It was a challenge to navigate our rig to the top of the ridge overlooking the dam, but well worth it. 

What a find! Loved the individual cabins, each with its own unique quirks. We had No.2 with a separate bath house and rockpool. Below is the uninterrupted view from our balcony. The serenity of waking the next morning to just the sound of birdsong topped off a very pleasant stay. 

Fabulous indoor/outdoor kitchen set-up and spacious social area with everything you need, and some. We did a lot of reminiscing about our shared experience on Rhodes this time 3 yrs ago. Is it really 3 years ago?

We had it to ourselves and made good use of it as well as the indoor/outdoor kitchen and the plunge pool, while our caravan and car sat idle. Eric whipped up a sumptuous Greek lamb dish for dinner. 

After a big breakfast in the morning it was time to tackle that descent back to the hwy. Its only about a km long but gave our bike stand on the back a workout and we now need to get it reinforced before we leave Katherine. Other than that, everything survived. 

We stayed the next couple of nights at the very pleasant Shady Lane Tourist Park on the banks of the Katherine River on the Gorge side of town. Having been told by our caravan mates that most parks these days are all set up with drive-through sites, of course we chose one we had to back up into, but Eric handled it without much trouble. We took a walk to the river in the afternoon and I was very happy to be able to use my binoculars without specs. Yes, I have 20/20 vision again after successful cataract surgery. 

The next morning we had planned a bike ride to the low level and back home on the other side of the river but we discovered we had also lost the seat off Eric's bike so that had to be solved first. Then we had 9 holes on the golf course which is in really good shape. Unfortunately the golf was marred by my poor form which included slipping into a lateral water hazard and a grassfire that got out of control and burnt the tyres lining the nearby speedway track. We think they were burning-off close to the showgrounds so any stray fireworks didn't set it on fire tonight. 

While I recovered from the shock of my fall Eric went to the shops and bumped into Shane and Fran. We first met Shane at KSA when we arrived here in 2000. He was one of the technicians who kept the radio communication running. We spent the afternoon out at their place reminiscing and learning of their future plans. The other good thing we learnt was that one of Fran's sons is a top welder so we will be visiting him in the morning to see what he can do with our wobbly bike rack.